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Todd Wilbur is the host of CMT’s new cooking show “Top Secret Recipe.” Photo:

He doesn’t call himself a chef, but Todd Wilbur is certainly cooking up a storm.

The author of a series of best-selling cookbooks, Wilbur is known as a “food hacker.” A food hacker is someone who attempts to duplicate world-famous recipes through trial-and-error.

The entire “food hacking” phenomenon started back in the late 1980s, when a chain letter began to circulate around the United States claiming to have the recipe for Mrs. Field’s famous cookies. Eventually what had happened was a woman purchased this recipe and was overcharged at auction, and in an attempt to get even, she photocopied the recipe and sent it out across the country.

Wilbur, capitalizing on Americans’ desire to have these recipes recreated for them, jumped on the opportunity.

Fast forward nearly 25 years later, and Wilbur is the host of CMT’s new cooking show “Top Secret Recipe.” Armed with a mobile food lab, Wilbur will have three days to recreate some of the world’s most famous recipes, starting with Colonel Sanders’ famous KFC chicken.

Wilbur has recreated dozens of recipes in the past, but now the pressure is on since he hasn’t had to perform under the tense circumstances provided in the show.

“Yeah a little bit of panic doesn’t even begin to describe it, there’s a lot panic because that last day is so stressful. With the KFC episode we had a lot of trouble with the pressure fryer. We needed to use a basket in the fryer, but they didn’t give it to us. I had no way to cook it. Then, the pressure fryer broke down on us,” Wilbur said.

It wasn’t just the chicken that gave Wilbur a hard time — every little problem can prove to be a big diversion and will keep viewers on the edge of their seat.

“For the Mrs. Field’s cookie, the oven in truck was not calibrated right. It was set at 50 degrees lower than it should have been and the knob was loose. Every time I have to use an oven and it’s breaking on me, it was extremely stressful. For a while we couldn’t figure out the special Cinnabon oven they gave us. Someone almost got electrocuted,” Wilbur said.

While it may seem fun to travel around the country in a mobile food lab and try your hand at duplicating some of America’s most beloved recipes, Wilbur said nothing beats cooking in a full kitchen.

“I can cook much more stress free in a kitchen. In the truck, I’m using this equipment that I am not used to using. Also, there is no AC, a ton of cameras, and we are crammed into tight places. When we hit cities like Atlanta, Dallas and Phoenix, it becomes a very sweaty cooking show,” Wilbur said.

Some of the perks of working in the food lab is that they can combine the culinary arts with science in order to break down each recipe to its most basic levels. With a little help from tools and a food scientist of course.

“We get to use this cool microscope, which helps us examine the food. Then we can send it out to my friend Claudio, who is a food scientist, and he will analyze it and send me his findings. I want to get to a point where we can recreate a CSI lab experience for this,” Wilbur said.

Even with myriad tools and resources at his disposal, Wilbur experienced some other hurdles when it came to cloning some foods.

“I had never cloned Dominos; this was the first time and it was for the show and it’s their new recipe. I have three days to recreate what they did in two years. The dough was very hard and when it needs to rise in two days and you have three days to clone it, things get hectic. I had to create eight different types of dough and hope that one is right,” Wilbur said.

Wilbur also went to great lengths to gather intel regarding some of the recipes viewers will see on “Top Secret Recipe” this season, at times doing his best James Bond impression.

“I went to some pretty crazy lengths. I dressed up as Dominos pizza delivery guy and made my way into the Dominos kitchen to get something. In another episode, I dress as an electrician to install cameras into a Mrs. Fields kitchen to look at cooking times. I’ve tracked Tim Gannon [Outback Steakhouse] and Cinnamom, who created Cinnabon. I’ll do anything,” Wilbur said.

Wilbur also thought the intense competition was unwarranted, reminding the companies that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

“They have been super competitive about this and I don’t know why. I’m not out to make it better, I’m just trying to match it. They have been so competitive about it, maybe because they have put in so much time and money. What’s important to remember is that it is not about who has made something better, I just want to duplicate it,” Wilbur said.

At the end of each episode, a panel will decide whether or not Wilbur successfully recreated each recipe.

“We have real experts. For Outback, we had the creator of the Blooming Onion’s son come in. For other ones it’s one or two executives or someone in R&D or a franchise owner. We had a frat guy who eats Dominos three or four times a week, a Facebook fan of Cinnabon,” Wilbur said.

Wilbur also likened himself to the underdog, saying that the pressure is all on him, especially since there are wagers involved.

The odds are really stacked against me. I’ve got to fool experts in this. We’ve wagered free Dippin’ Dots for a year, but if I lose I have to do a shift in their 40-below freezer,” Wilbur said.

Will Wilbur make the cut? Viewers can find out when “Top Secret Recipe” premieres Friday Oct. 7 at 9 p.m. on CMT.